wise might have been occupied by wharves. But this could have been made of value to shipping only with great effort to overcome the tendency to shoaling, due to the fact that the rivers meeting at this point slow up and drop their silt. It was along this very wall on High Battery that the excited population of Charleston gathered, on April 12, 1861, to watch the bombardment of Fort Sumter from Fort Johnson on the tip of James Island, now occupied by the Quarantine Station. It is said that once upon a time a promising young assistant bank cashier was offered a substantial promotion in rank, salary and opportunity in an enterprising new interior city but declined because he preferred ally paid for the missing link in the driveway along the park, "White Point Gardens," thus making it possible for automobiles to circulate down East Bay and East Battery along the Cooper River, and turn northwest on Murray Boulevard along the Ashley River to Tradd Street. The people of Charleston feel that this is only the beginning of their waterfront development. There are marshes and flats between natural high land and the Ashley River above the Lighthouse Station, on up above the new $1,500,000 Ashley River Memorial Bridge. The titles to a large portion of these flats have already been acquired by the city, and other portions are owned by citizens who will join with the city as soon as city finances and the demand for waterfront residence property will permit the continuation of the boulevard the full length of the frontage on the Ashley River. Although Charleston has not yet passed a zoning ordinance and adopted a city plan, by accident or merely because of the geographic, hydrographic meteorologic situation there has developed a natural city plan. This is not sufficient to preserve the historic and architecturally unique colonial city; yet the city has escaped the complete blight that has fallen upon some other cities. It will not be necessary in its future zoning to make huge expenditures as several cities have done because of early mistakes that required remedial action later. WHERE THE RIVERS MEET AT CHARLESTON to remain in Charleston, where every Sunday he could "worship in St. Michael's Church and then walk on High Battery." The Ashley River marshes were gradually encroached upon and filled-in here and there as opportunity afforded, but no substantial effort was made to construct a waterfront boulevard along the Ashley River until the term as Mayor of R. Goodwyn Rhett, sometime President of the Chamber of Commerce of the United States. From 1909 to 1911 a sea-wall, promenade and driveway was tended from the Battery at the foot of King Street to Tradd Street, where a continuance of the shore line for civic development is blocked by the U. S. Lighthouse Headquarters for the 6th Naval District. The area added 47 acres of high-class residential property. ex The boulevard has added a full mile to the old East or High Battery. A. B. Murray, a public-spirited citizen of Charleston, person The south and west part of the peninsula grew as a residential section because of the prevailing sea breezes and the views across bay and ocean. The Ashley River above the city limits has long been the site for fertilizer and chemical plants. Twenty-one feet of water at low tide and 26 feet at high tide are sufficient for schooners and small chartered vessels in this trade. The Cooper River waterfront, with 30 feet of water at low tide and 35 at high tide, has come to be the location for the private, railroad, and city wharves, the great oil refineries and tank yards, the U. S. Navy Yard, and the U. S. Army Supply Base, now operated under lease by the city. All such activities demand deep-water frontage capable of admitting the largest commercial vessels. The territory in the neck of the upper end of the peninsula has gradually taken on the nature of an industrial terrain of the port. However, beyond VIEWS OF VARIOUS SECTIONS OF CHARLESTON'S WATERFRONT 1.-East Battery from the Bay. 2.-High Battery, looking down East Battery. 3.-The Ashley River branch of Charleston harbor, and Murray Boulevard past White Point Gardens. 4. The Boulevard, one mile of drive and 48 acres of new lots reclaimed from the marshes. 5.-Boulevard lots are exceptionally attractive home sites, with a sunset view across the broad Ashley and the prevailing trade winds blowing out of the southwest. The Battery, White Point Gardens, where the waterfront drive turns west and north again 6. Are the river banks of your city decorated in this manner with dead dogs, wrecked automobiles and discarded home and industrial equipment? If, instead of using your river as an open sewer and its banks as garbage and refuse dumps, it has been beautified and made a piace for clean and healthful recreation, THE AMERICAN CITY will be glad to receive photographs for reproduction as in inspiration to other communities. First Mothers' Safety Council Formed in Philadelphia How Lives of School Children Are Being Safeguarded by Extraordinary Measures Taken Through Various Sources T By K. H. Lansing WO hundred mothers of children killed in traffic accidents in Philadelphia during the last four years, met on October 6 and formed the first Mothers' Safety Council in the United States. The plan of this remarkable gathering of women into whose lives poignant tragedy had entered in common, was to cooperate with the Citizens Safety Committee of the Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce, of which it now forms a part, in appealing to other mothers to teach their children to avoid highway hazards and to exercise caution in the streets and thus reduce the number of casualties among the young while crossing at street intersections, "catching rides" or playing on the thoroughfares. The urgent need for some such decisive procedure is recognized when it is known that in the last At the mothers' meeting, which assumed the form of a noonday luncheon at one of the leading hotels, as a preliminary to the active opening of the campaign, Fred W. Johnson, Managing Director of the Citizens Safety Committee; W. R. Kelly, its Secretary; Benjamin B. Ludlow, former state representative; Inspector John Stuckert, representing Director George W. Elliott, of the Department of Public Safety; Colonel George Kemp, Postmaster Campaign of Mothers' Safety Coun- Highway fatalities in Philadelphia in 41⁄2 years 554 children have been killed in street accidents in Philadelphia, while 17,753 have been injured. Yearly, some 4,000 traffic accidents wherein persons are injured and about 125 in which death results, happen in this city. Nearly half a million motor cars are in use in Philadelphia and, in 1926, trucks alone injured 2,579 persons and killed 121. Children stealing rides on passing vehicles, inviting accident, in the past year have brought this class of cases to an increase of 177 per cent for the period. Prior to the meeting of the mothers, the Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce, through its Citizens Safety Committee, determined to launch the most comprehensive campaign for child safety ever attempted and, with this end in view, invited the close cooperation of the Child Safety Committee, a group of prominent women headed by Mrs. George H. Strawbridge, who is also a member of the Board of Governors of the Citizens Safety Committee. of Philadelphia, and E. W. Miller, VicePresident of the Indemnity Insurance Co. of North America, all authorities on the subject, addressed the gathering on the topic of safety on the highways. As presented at this session, the plan embraced the following steps: Reaching, during the period of the campaign, to last two months, every father and mother in the city, through the women's committee, with a message explaining what will be expected of them. Giving every child in the public and parochial schools extensive instruction in highway safety measures through the cooperation of the Board of Public Education and the officials of the parochial schools. Dividing the entire city into four districts, or zones of instruction, the work to be carried on in each of these districts for a full week. Distribution, by teachers, of safety literature among all pupils in each district at the outset of each week, together with blank forms to be taken by the pupils into their homes for the mothers to fill in at least one suggestion, apiece, for the prevention of accidental injury to children on the streets, the blanks then to be returned to the teachers by the pupils and turned over to the Citizens Safety Committee for tabulation and future use. Enlisting the aid of the police department and the large radio broadcasting stations. Posting, in every public and parochial school in the city, for the final month of the campaign, a juvenile traffic record for the month, the teacher daily to give a brief talk on any recorded accidents of the previous day, and explain ways in which these might have been avoided. No sooner had the campaign been launched than the public and parochial school authorities entered whole-heartedly into the plan. Dr. E. C. Broome, Superintendent of Public Schools, and the Rev. Dr. John Bonner, head of the parochial schools, both of whom are members of the Board of Governors of the Citizens Safety Committee, at once offered every facility and service to the committee and it was announced that Director Elliott would permit uniformed policemen and firemen to speak, from time to time, as urged by the committee, in the schools, emphasizing the proper use of the streets and the hazards of fire and fire apparatus. This work is already in progress. The pupils of the various schools are now taking home the blanks from the Citizens Safety Committee furnished to the teachers and some very practical suggestions have been made thereon by mothers and returned to the committee. While the active campaign for the present is being concentrated into two months, the work has only just begun and emphasis of the various phases of safety to children will be continued through the winter and spring and in the early summer a new concentrated safety campaign will be started. During the winter months, there will be safety features relating to coasting, skating and snowballing in the streets and highways and, as the year rolls around, there will be seasonable safety phases emphasized for the different months. Voting Machines Successful in Greater New York EARLY 2,000 voting machines were used suc election November & in New York. The boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn were completely equipped with the mechanical ballot. At the presidential election next year all five boroughs comprising Greater New York will use machines. This will complete the installation program initiated in 1925, when 75 machines were employed in the Fifteenth Assembly District in Manhattan. Last year upwards of 600 machines served several assembly districts. It was clearly demonstrated at the election this year that voting machines are the means of reducing election expenses to a very appreciable extent. While definite figures are not available at this time, the items of saving can be pointed out. First, the services of two clerks in every one of the 1,864 MAYOR WALKER AND MRS. WALKER AT A VOTING MACHINE ON ELECTION DAY IN NEW YORK election districts were dispensed with. Second, the compensation of the four inspectors in each election district was reduced from $16 to $11. Third, upwards of 200 election districts were consolidated, thereby wiping out all of the election expense. Fourth, the paper ballot expense was done away with. The New York ballot was rather complicated this year on account of the submission of nine amendments and one local proposition. Because of this fact, balloting was somewhat slower than it was last year. However, the great majority of voters cast their votes on machines in less than a minute. Others, who did not take advántage of the instruction given on the small model and diagram in each polling place, required several minutes. At the close of the polls the total results on each machine were quickly transcribed to the return sheets, and in an hour the central compilation board at Police Headquarters were swamped with re turns. GEORGE W. CONKLIN, Deputy Chief Clerk, Board of Elections, in orge of voting. machine activities. |